Tag Archives | Vending Machine

Sometimes you just have to make the most of the opportunities in front of you.

About a year ago, Skittles took one of their sweet looking custom vending machines (the same vending machines they give to celebrities) and offered it up to anyone that could convince them through either photo or video why they were a worthy recipient.

One (well actually two) of the responses came from Trale Lewous, a character played by Nathan J. Barnatt, a YouTube ‘celebrity’ that creates wacky characters and makes odd videos with those characters.

Predictably, his entry videos were a little… odd:

But that should come as no surprise, since Trale Lewous made odd commercials for Skittles on his own without any reward:

Since Skittles is an odd brand, they seized upon this odd opportunity, and delivered Trale his prize:

Since Trale was already a huge Skittles fan, the videos continued:

Skittles again seized upon the opportunity in front of them, and delivered a custom boombox to help Trale Lewous with his music videos:

A month later, another video emerged from the Trale Lewous/Skittles partnership:

By keeping the videos low-budget, Skittles doesn’t need millions of views to justify the campaign. Even a few hundred thousand well targeted views would be enough to make this campaign a success, especially when many of those views come from hard to crack communities like Reddit.

Now many brands would have called it quits after a series of successful videos, but Skittles decided to take their partnership a step further by making Trale the star of an online video contest, which they teased:

And then formally announced with their new official spokesperson:

RideTheRainbow.com is, as you’d expect, a bit odd, but it fits with the type of brand they’re trying to create, and appeals to their intended audience. (The same people that watch and enjoy videos featuring Trale Lewous.)

Since this whole thing started with a vending machine giveaway, the hope must be that by giving away a Skittles pinball machine, they’ll unearth the next Trale Lewous, and start the cycle all over again.

And with an endless supply of new talent flooding YouTube every day, doing whatever it takes to stand out, Skittles should have no problem finding their next star.

Lay’s Potato Chips contain just three ingredients: potatoes, vegetable oil, and salt. However, in a world where ingredient lists frequently cover half a product’s packaging, and ingredients themselves are 20 character contractions that even scientists struggles to understand, it’s safe to say that most people assume a snack food like potato chips must contain a smorgasbord of unnatural ingredients and chemical byproducts in order to taste so good.

To prove them wrong, Castro, an agency out of Argentina, developed a special vending machine the turns raw potatoes into bags of potato chips right before your very eyes.

Upon entering a store where the vending machine is on display, consumers are handed a potato with a sticker on it that directs them to take the potato to the snack isle and insert it into the Lay’s machine.

Once dropped into the machine (which only accepts potatoes; no coins allowed) a movement sensor triggers a one-minute video that walks consumers through the six-step process of creating a potato chip: Washing, Peeling, Cutting, Cooking, Salting and Packaging. A light-up guide highlights each step, and at the end of the process, a finished bag of Lay’s Potato Chips pops out of the machine.

What’s most impressive is that Castro even took care of the small details, such as a heater that warms each bag so that it comes out feeling like a freshly cooked potato. Details like that are often overlooked, but really go a long way towards completing the experience for the consumer, and helping the message sink in.

While some criticize the fact that a video is used instead of a tiny potato chip factory, because a video doesn’t support the message of being 100% natural, I think most consumers are impressed enough by the experience, and that the added headache of building a real potato chip factory inside the vending machine would not be worth the marginal increase in amazement. (It would just take one wild potato spilling hot oil all over the inside of the machine to cause a cleanup mess big enough to halt the whole idea…) Plus, if Castro wants to make more of these machines and take the campaign global, it’s a lot easier to replicate one that uses a video screen, and creates opportunities to update the message, allowing Lay’s to include things like a coupon dispenser, or social media connections.

While most brands see supermarkets as a place to offer samples or hand out coupons, the Lay’s vending machine is an example of a campaign that thinks outside the box, and will surely leave a lasting impression in consumers’ minds that just might change the way they think about potato chips.